


Vanilla Ice Cream

by Algae



Series: Song Series [1]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Algae/pseuds/Algae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mizuno Ami wasn't sure what to make of the Shittenou's resurrection. She was determined to make sure they didn't do anything to hurt any of the Senshi again.  But Kitano Sakurako kept getting under her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanilla Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

> I have an idea for a series based on the resurrection of the Shittenou. I don't know why - Senshi/Shittenou isn't necessarily a trope I think needs to always happen, but you know how it is when you get an idea. Each couple will have a story with a song base. I'm not going to get into the whole "how they were resurrected" or "how they found each other" part of the story. 
> 
> The Shittenou's names are:
> 
> Zoisite - Kitano Sakurako  
> Jadeite - Aisuno Izumi  
> Nephrite - Yozorono Naoto  
> Kunzite - Kishino Keigo

Mizuno Ami closed the door and let out a low growl. The reintroduction of the Shitennou had been rocky. Usagi might trust them, but the rest of the Senshi were being...cautious. Yes, cautious. It wasn’t unusual for new friends to turn out to be energy-stealing aliens in disguise. 

This time, the new friends had the added benefit of looking like traitorous friends from their past that had (literally!) stabbed them in the back. 

Suffice it to say, Ami was finding it difficult to relax when they were around. 

Mamoru was happy to see them. He had kept the stones after Metallia’s defeat, but they had never spoken to him after the battles with Galaxia. He’d assumed it was because of him; he had died, after all. 

But one day, he had taken a late lunch and ended up sitting next to one Kishino Keigo. Mamoru’s memories of his time as a brainwashed minion of evil were fuzzy (and mixed; it had happened a few times), but he remembered the voice and the silvery sheen to the man’s hair. Mamoru had blinked a few times, croaked out the word “Kunzite” and the man had answered him. 

It hadn’t taken long to locate the other generals; Keigo-san had apparently already met them and they were simply waiting for recognition. Mamoru was excited to have them around; for one thing, it meant having other guys around to talk to. Artemis tried his best, but he was mostly cat. 

Usagi was thrilled. She welcomed them into the group with an open heart. Ami didn’t trust quite as easily as Usagi. Usagi hadn’t been steered wrong in a friendship yet, although she’d cut it close a few times. And Mamoru’s friends from his past did have a tendency to lead to Usagi’s death. Ami had seen Usagi die too many times for it to happen again. So, she would keep watch. She would simply never relax when the Shittenou were around. One part of her would stay on alert, looking for the hidden blade that would destroy them. 

It was actually with some relief that Ami shut the door and slumped against it. It had been a long day. She’d had class in the morning, worked on two papers during lunch, gone to her organic chemistry lab (and, seriously, why were they spending so much time on covalent bonds?) and then had to go to movie night. With the Shittenou. 

All day, she had been around people. People in her classes. People at the coffee shop. People on the subway. And then Shittenou. 

Kishino-san was almost scarily identical to the muddled memories of the Silver Millenium Kunzite Ami held. He was quiet, watchful. She was sure he would be scarily protective of Mamoru once he felt more at ease in this crazy world they lived in. Always calculating.

Izumi, the modern Jadeite, was light hearted and seemed to be joking his way through the changes. Ami liked him, but everything he did rubbed Rei the wrong way. He had joked his way through the entire “past life” and “future life” discussions, but he seemed to understand what was going on. It was a point in his favor, anyways.

Ami had been prepared to hate Naoto completely (turned out her bitter feelings towards Nephrite as Sanjoin Masato hadn’t completely dissipated) , but the man was like a loveable puppy. A big puppy. One of those puppies that hadn’t grown into his ears and was always tripping on them and spilling things and then looking at you and being completely confused about how the vase had broken. 

And then there was Sakurako. The most annoying, infuriating, befuddling person she’d ever met.

He was smart, she’d give him that much. He was a computer science major and his knowledge was quickly outpacing his professors. As Mercury, she had a fair amount of computer skills, but they weren’t as focused as his were. He knew he knew computers. He wasn’t afraid to brag about that fact. He also knew he was more comfortable with computers than most people, so he made sure people knew that fact, too. And he was always saying the perfect thing to get under her skin. 

Earlier that afternoon, Makoto had brought her laptop over to the movie night, complaining that something had gone wrong with it again. This was not an uncommon occurrence; Makoto didn’t always control her powers as well as she wanted to and there was an unusually high amount of static electricity in her apartment. Ami had done several things to it to reduce the impact of that on her appliances, but things still slipped when Makoto was under stress. Makoto tended to be stressed whenever a paper was due and her laptop took the brunt of the pain. Hence, asking Ami to fix it (and pretty please find her paper she’d already written three pages and really didn’t want to do it again thank you you’re the best Ami-chan!).

Once dinner was over and everyone else had settled down to watching the movie, Ami started working on Makoto’s laptop.

“Whatcha doin’” Sakurako asked. 

Ami started somewhat. She wasn’t used to anyone coming up behind her when she worked. She wished she wouldn’t blush every time Sakurako talked to her. “Makoto-chan said her laptop was crashing a lot again. I’m fixing it.”

“Oh? I’m really good with that sort of thing. I’ll do it!” He pulled up the chair next to hers and started reaching for the laptop. “So, first, did you try turning it off and back on?”

Ami looked at him in astonishment. Did she turn it off and on? Was he really asking her that? “Excuse me?” she said through clenched teeth.

“I asked if you turned it off and back on. You’d be surprised at how often that can fix a problem.”

Instantly, the temperature in the room dropped. Silence descended on the room as the others turned and looked at them. 

“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “I did. I have fixed Makoto-chan’s computer several times. I know what she does to th--”

“Okay, well it doesn’t seem to be anything in the reboot. Just give me a couple of minutes. I don’t think this is something you need to concern yourself with. I can easily get to this,” he interrupted. 

Ami blinked. “You can get to this?” Ami asked softly.

“Oh, yeah, no problem. It’ll be easy for me,” he replied, not looking at her.

“Are you saying that it wouldn’t be easy for me?” A dangerous note crept into her voice. 

Sakurako finally looked up at her. “What? I’m just saying I fix computers all the time. I should do this. Why should you worry about it when you have other things to do? Don’t you have a test or something to study for?”

Even now, the condescension in his tone made her angry. “Don’t you have a test to study for?” she mimicked. If that had been the only time he'd acted like that, she could have chalked it up as a misunderstanding. But every time they met, he said something to annoy her. She was finding it difficult to keep from encasing him in ice and leaving him to figure his own way out.

Ami pinched her glabella. Thinking about Sakurako left her with a headache.

Sighing, Ami moved away from the door and went to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Her mother had the afternoon shift again and wouldn't be home until later. Ami turned on the stereo and flipped open her laptop. She wanted to do more research on the fusion reactor Lockheed recently announced.

She waited as she logged in and for her various programs to load. She smiled when she realized her friend Cherry-Sake was on line.

Friend might have been a funny word to use for someone she never met, let alone really know anything about, she mused. Cherry-Sake was just someone she’d met on a message board years ago. The two had followed each other through various forms of online media, but to this day, Ami was still not sure if Cherry-Sake was a man or a woman. She didn’t know where he (or she) lived. She didn’t know how old she (or he) was. 

What Ami did know, though, was that Cherry-Sake had a lightning-fast intellect, could understand some of the reasons why Ami studied everything, could make jokes about pi day and 42 as the meaning of life and Cherry-Sake would get it. Ami certainly never told her (or him) anything about her life as a senshi; she was careful to only refer to her friends in the vaguest terms. Apart from that, she had been able to share other thoughts: how lonely her mother’s home could be, how competitive her college classes were, how she wanted to save the world...one patient at a time. 

Cherry-Sake: Merc-babe! Hi! How are you?  
Ice_Herald: I’m all right. I just got in. Went to a friend’s house to watch a movie and almost ended up fixing their computers instead.  
Cherry-Sake: Ha! Isn’t that always the case? Just because you understand Google, people think that you must have magical computer powers!  
Ice_Herald: Well, this time, I ended up not doing anything. A new friend came over (a “Friend of a Friend”) and he told me to “not worry my little head about it.”  
Ice_Herald: Like a simple computer issue is anything to worry about  
Cherry-Sake: I’d like to meet the person to tell you to not worry about it. Must be brave.  
Ice_Herald: I’m fairly sure he’s just a jerk..  
Cherry-Sake: Now! Now for my news!  
Ice_Herald: What’s up?  
Cherry-Sake: I’m now located in Tokyo! We should meet for coffee some time! 

Ami froze. He was in town? Cherry-Sake was in Tokyo? What was she going to do? Part of the reason she could talk to Cherry-Sake was the fact that Ami never planned on meeting Cherry-Sake!

But, she the logical part of her brain questioned, was that true? Wasn’t she the least bit curious about her? Or him? Get to put a face with the mind she’d enjoyed talking to for so many years.

She’d talked to Cherry-Sake about everything. Especially loneliness. 

Usagi would tell me to do it, she thought. Of course she would. Usagi wouldn’t understand how hard it was to talk to people and be “on”. Usagi wouldn’t never understand being an introvert and how hard life was before Ami had met the blonde bubble of sunshine. But, meeting Usagi had also made Ami realize that you had to talk to people to be friends with them.

Fine, she decided. She took a deep breath.

Ice_Herald: That sounds great. I know a great place.

She and Cherry-Sake agreed to meet at Fruits Crown Plaza. Each would have a yellow rose to identify the other.

*****

Sakurako kicked the door behind him as he carried Kino-san’s laptop into his dorm room. Fixing it was looking more difficult than he thought it would be. When he grabbed it at the shrine, he thought it would be a simple matter of clearing the cache and running an anti-virus program. (A good one. Not that stupid Norton program every newbie to computers used.) 

He was wrong. He didn’t know what Kino-san had done to the machine, but it was clear that it was going to take some time to figure it out. He was beginning to wish he’d left it for Mizuno-san to fix, but remembering the disbelieving look in her eyes as he asserted he could fix it…

No. He would do this without her help.

The last few months had been a whirlwind, he mused. Meeting Keigo and learning that his fellow guardians were also alive and looking for Endymion-sama had been one shock. It was relief to know he wasn’t hallucinating and that the memories were real. It had been a joy getting to reknow his brothers-in-arms. The day Keigo had saw Endymion-sama in the cafeteria was a day of joy for all of them. Even now, Sarurako laughed when he remembered watching Keigo dash across the cafeteria to make it seem that he had casually chosen to sit at the same table. 

But, damn, it felt good. He really liked having the guys around. He’d always felt disconnected from everything. Now, he felt everything. And it felt so full and warm and...it was like being in a hot bath, just surrounded by warmth and knowing that it was a safe place. He nodded at the simile. Sakurako had always liked baths and the way they could soothe and immerse all at once. His mother had tended to laugh about it. “Oh, is it 4 in the afternoon already? I better get Sakurako into the bath so he’ll get out before bedtime,” she’d laugh with her friends when he was a toddler. 

Being with Keigo and Izumi and Naoto...and Endymion-sama...it was like being surrounded by the warm bath. He knew his life was about to change. For one thing, there were a lot more people in his life he had to get along with. Getting along with Senshi was number one on the list.

Usagi-hime (he loved how annoyed she would get when he called her that! It wasn’t like she could deny it. Keigo-kun had respectfully started calling her that and it had stuck.) was easy to get along with. He’d never met a person easier to like or more willing to give someone a second chance. Growing up, he’d always knew he was waiting to protect someone. He thought it might be Endymion-sama, but Usagi-hime was a close second. Even without magical beings from other dimensions attacking, he was pretty sure he’d jump in front of a car for her with no hesitation.

Mina-chan was just as sweet, but he had a feeling she wasn’t entirely trusting of them yet. She would be loud and giggly and exuberant, but he’d caught her watching them carefully at times. Her crystal blues eyes fooled people. They made people think all she thought was on the surface, but he wasn’t falling for that. He could see the calculations rushing through her mind on how to use them to protect Usagi-hime. He had a feeling that pointing out they were Endymion-sama’s guards wouldn’t matter; she had more people to protect Usagi, and she would use them if she could. Even if it was simply to use them as cannon fodder.

Hino-san was quiet. She clearly did not trust them and was constantly watching them. Beautiful regal, still...she was quietly in the background. If one of them was talking to Usagi-hime, Hino-san would be there, just to the side, ready to jump in as needed. He had a feeling they would be briquettes if it was up to her. He had no illusions about it. Hino-san had a hierarchy. There was Usagi-hime and her grandpa, whom she adored and would do anything for. Then, there was her fellow senshi. After that, there were the Outer Senshi (who, Sakurako had to admit, frightened the hell out of him). After them, the rest of the known world. Somewhere after that came his fellow guardians and himself. 

Kino-san was easy to like. She was guarded around them (and he had no doubt she could bench press more than he weighed), but she wasn’t openly hostile. Usagi-hime had ordered them to get along, so she would. She’d even made them cookies for after training sessions and movie nights. She was friendly and always seemed to know what people needed to feel better - good food, good exercise, lots of laughs. It seemed to be a prescription that worked. 

And then there was Mizuno-san. Endymion-sama said she was quiet, but sweet. She was certainly quiet. She hardly said two words to him. Sakurako had yet to see any evidence of the sweet. Every time they saw each other, she would freeze him out. {Literally! He was starting to worry about frostbitten fingers.) She would be studying or working on something and basically just ignoring the commotion. He had no doubt she was watching everything, calculating the odds that something would go wrong. He would see her, holding herself back from saying something, trying to be polite, but she wouldn’t say what it was she was thinking. She didn’t trust them.

Him. She didn’t trust him.

You could see it in her eyes, sometimes. The flicker of calculation, that he was about to screw something up, lose his brain, and she’d have to kill him. 

Again.

He didn’t want to figure out why that was so painful.

Maybe that was why he’d horned in on the laptop repair. He worked at the IT desk in the college’s computer lab. He was a genius when it came to computers, if he did say so himself (and he frequently did). They just talked to him and he could tell them what he wanted them to do and they would do it. Mizuno-san couldn’t know more about laptops than he did. He needed to prove himself. That he was smart. He could work through a problem without screwing it up. He was sure there was something obvious she was missing. 

After an hour, he had decided it wasn’t something obvious.

Well, he had to fix it on his own now. He couldn’t admit defeat. There was no way a simple laptop would best him. And that would show Ami-chan he was just as smart as she was. 

Fine, maybe not that smart. He was pretty sure that no one was that smart. Mizuno-san was scary smart.

Actually, now that he was thinking about it, there was one person he knew that could be that smart. He didn’t know her in person, but Ice_Herald and he had been chatting online for years. She was smart. She didn’t brag about her grades, but he knew she liked to study everything. She was really caught up in quantum mechanics and time travel a few years ago, and then inexplicably changed to microbiology. And she could follow any subject he could bring up. If he brought up some new cooling technology that was making super-processors more efficient, she would follow up and find out more and grasp the implications for their use. He loved chatting with her.

He also liked that she could let him ramble. Being online was oddly freeing. He didn’t have to let her know about his family and why they didn’t always get along and what was expected from the family name. He didn’t have to let her know that he always knew there was something bigger that waiting for him. But he did. She hadn’t made fun of him, just let him ramble. He didn’t have to worry about his words when chatting with her. When typing, he didn’t seem so short-tempered. 

Wasn’t she located in Tokyo? They’d always lived on opposite sides of the country. He remember thinking that it was odd that she hadn’t looked into more prestigious universities than Tokyo U or even a foreign college. 

He smiled as he woke his computer up. Maybe it was time for them to meet up.

*****

Ami loved the library. She loved all the books, the rows upon neatly organized rows of volumes that people used to share knowledge. She loved the old microfilm machines that allowed her to research old newspaper stories. She loved the buzz of the flourescent lights, because it meant that the space was quiet and she could think. She often spent her morning break at the campus library, either finishing up an assignment or researching some new aspect of science she’d heard about.

And the third floor lounge, tucked way in the back, behind the old bound journals, was the perfect spot for reading novels when she could spare the time. It was nice to read something light hearted when she had a lot of other things to do. Plus, there was that date later...

No. Not a date. Just meeting a friend.

Not a date. No expectations. Just coffee.

She had just settled in to read Courtney MIlan’s latest when someone sat in the chair beside her.

“Hello, Mizuno-san!”

Sakurako. Of course. He would be the only person to look at a nearly empty room and decide that the best thing to do would be to sit by the one person in there, obviously trying to get some private time. Ami glared at him.

“Hello, Kitano-san,” she said, politely. “Do you have a reason for interrupting me? I was concentrating on something else.”

He looked innocently at her. “Nope, I just saw you coming in here and thought I’d say hello.”

“Well, hello. Now good bye.” Ami pointedly turned away from him. Maybe he would get the hint and leave. 

She sat there, quietly flipping through pages on her e-reader as she read. Milan really was a good writer. A person could be almost completely immersed in the world she created, watching bickering couples fall in love. 

After a couple of moments, he stopped and looked at her. “How did you do it? How did you get away so often? Did you get caught?”

“What?” Ami answered, startled. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean? Mostly I ran really fast towards where people were screaming.”

“No,” Sakurako replied, shaking his head dismissively. “How did you get away from your parents? Teachers? Didn’t people notice when you’d leave?”

Ami thought about it for a minute. “I think it was easier for me than you’d expect. My mother is extremely busy. She works the crazy shifts at the hospital, is on a couple of the committees there, and then does charitable work, too. She’s hardly ever home. Even when she is, she’s tired. If I had plans with friends I hadn’t mentioned before or if was leaving suddenly, she either wasn’t home or was relieved I would be gone so she could sleep.” Sakurako thought he’d heard sadness, but as she went on, her voice was light. “As for school, well, I’m a good student.” He snorted at that. Good was an understatement, but Ami went on as if she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she hadn’t. She seemed to be remembering. “I would simply ask to be excused and the teachers would nod.”

“Nobody questioned you?” 

“Why would they? As long as I was getting good grades, no one cared.” Ami allowed a small smile. “I admit, I took care at school to make it seem like I was a model student who would never dream of doing anything reckless.” She was quiet for a second. Sakurako kept staring at her. “It’s actually harder now. The college courses are challenging and I’m trying to finish the pre-med program in three years, so I have extra classes. Getting out of those, especially during an exam, would be much more difficult. I have a couple of ideas, but I hope I don’t have to use them.”

“I’m, well, frankly, I’m amazed. It just now occurred to me. You’ve fooled everyone. I bet at school, you’re the studious one the others are afraid to get close to because they might interrupt you. Conservative. Quiet. They don’t know that you have a secret life with your friends that you spent several nights a week wearing a miniskirt, shouting orders.”

Of course he noticed the miniskirt, Ami scowled. She reminded herself to play nice, but really, the fact that he misunderstood her role was annoying. “I don’t shout orders. I simply offer the most efficient plan to wound the youma so it can be healed or destroyed.”

“Hey,” he laughed. “Don’t get ruffled, ice-girl. I like the miniskirt.”

Ami blushed. She wished she wouldn’t do that when she got angry. 

But maybe he was trying. Maybe she could try to be a little less suspicious of him.

*****

Sakurako-san paced nervously outside of Crown Fruits Parlor. He’d been here a couple of times. Apparently the owner was good friends with Mamoru-san, so it was on his list of places to check when he needed to find the man. He was a bit surprised Ice-Herald had suggested it, but it did seem to be popular. Maybe Ice-Herald just wanted to be sure to meet him in a public place. Every piece of internet safety advice said to do so and he doubted she’d be the type to not follow the advice of experts.

Why had he suggested meeting again? Maybe a friendship based on never meeting face to face, never have expectations, having time to consider responses was better. He had a good thing going with Ice_Herald. Why had he suggested meeting? In person?

He was an idiot.

Just as he was coming to the conclusion he was an utter twat, he looked across the street. Mizuno-san was headed his way. She was dressed really cute today, he noted, absent-mindedly. She wasn’t wearing her usual blue, but a soft yellow halter dress. She was carrying her usual messenger bag and he had no doubt she had several books, her iPad, and possibly a laptop in there. 

She really was pretty, he mused. In a quiet way. She wasn’t sensual like Mina-chan. She wasn’t stunning like Hino-san. She wasn’t radiant like Usagi-hime. Hers was the beauty of the tree silhouetted against a cloudless sky. You were immersed in it before you realized that you had admired it.

He wondered what she was doing here. He knew she normally hid out in the library between classes. Well, talking to Mizuno-san would help him pass the time until he saw the yellow rose that Ice_Herald had promised to wear. 

“Mizuno-san!” he yelled as she crossed the street. She looked up and spotted him. Surely that wasn’t a look of disappointment he saw? No, he knew he was lovable and affable. And modest, too, he thought sarcastically.

Ami groaned as she spotted who was yelling her name. She was really hoping that no one else she knew would be at Crown when she’d arranged to meet Cherry-Sake. But Kitano-san? Of all the people she knew, Kitano-san? She knew he’d say something to ruin her day and she had really been looking forward to this day.

But, she had promised herself to try to be nicer to him. Possible hidden depths. She couldn’t ignore him completely.

“Kitano-san,” she said politely, bowing as she passed him. He jogged a couple of steps to catch up when he realized she hadn’t stopped. 

“I thought you normally hid out at the library between classes,” he said.

“Well, I felt like a change today,” Ami responded. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said crisply, trying to skirt around him. 

Sakurako didn’t know what had come over him. Normally, he’d have backed off, let her by, but there was something about the combination of nervousness over meeting Ice_Herald, the memories of the past that kept creeping into his head, and the way Mizuno-san didn’t want to talk to him that led to him pushing on.

“What’s the hurry,” he asked, making sure to keep one step in front of her. 

She smiled tightly. “No hurry, Just trying to get to Crown. I thought a vanilla milkshake would be nice today.”

“Oh, that sounds delicious!” he exclaimed. “I shall join you!”

She stopped suddenly and stared at him. “What?”

“You’re having ice cream. It’s a warm day. I think I shall like an ice cream, too. I will join you.” He thought he was being quite logical. Surely Mizuno-san would appreciate that.

“What?” she repeated. She shook her head. “No. No. No no no no no.” She began shaking her head to emphasize the point. “I don’t need you to join me. I just needed a break, it’s a beautiful day, I felt like ice cream. That’s all.”

Sakurako thought it was a bit odd. Mizuno was usually quieter. Less declarative.

“But I’m now feeling like ice cream. We should have ice cream together.” He didn’t know why he was pushing this. He was supposed to be looking for Ice_Herald. He was supposed to be keeping his eyes open for a yellow rose. Meeting up with Ice_Herald had been his stupid idea. He didn’t want to ruin his friendship with her because he couldn’t stop thinking about Mizuno-san’s odd behavior. 

Ami’s eyes widened at the idea of having Kitano-san join her. She’d only rambled off the ice cream excuse so she’d have a reason to go into Crown and meet Cherry-Sake. 

“Kitano-san,” she said, pulling up her courage, “I just need to be by myself today.” And she darted around him, practically running into the cafe.

As the door closed behind her, Sakurako noticed the yellow rose tucked into her hair.

Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no. 

Mizuno was Ice_Herald. 

Mizuno.

Ami Mizuno, the smartest girl in Japan, the smartest girl in the galaxy, even, had been his online friend for years. He’d told her everything. She was the person he’d felt the most comfortable talking with. And now, he knew who she was.

She was the person that scared him to bits.

**Author's Note:**

> This story's idea came from the song "Vanilla Ice Cream" from the musical "She Loves Me".


End file.
